Vegetarians Given Life Insurance Incentive

Summary
An interesting new insurance plan has been introduced by Animal Friends Insurance (AFI). The new insurance plan offers lower premiums to vegetarians, based on evidence that they are at a reduced risk than their carnivorous counterparts of developing certain health conditions. It remains to be seen whether other insurance firms will follow the example set by AFI .

A none profit insurance firm has launched a scheme which offers vegetarians and fish-eaters a reduced premium life insurance premium .

The offer, considered to be the first of its kind, is being pioneered by Animal Friends Insurance (AFI). The firm is offering veggies a 7% price reductionon mortgage cover premiums
The organisation said that veggies ought to pay a lower amount for the product, which pays out if the client were to die, because they were more unlikely to suffer from a list of chronic illnesses, including some cancers.

Amanda Jude, AFI’s senior director, claims that the risk of vegetarians being diagnosed with certain cancers is reduced by up to 40% and the risk of them suffering from heart disease is cut by up to thirty two per cent, but despite this they have, until now, had to pay broadly identical insurance costs as people who eat meat.
She says that Animal Friends Insurance think that this is unfair and says the insurance companies should recognise the concept that being a veggie can make have a positive influence on life expectancy and reduce its premiums accordingly.

A full-price arrangement is also on the market for meat eaters. Both insurance plans are marketed by LV=, which used to be known as Liverpool Victoria.

In common with normal life cover, a range of things contribute to the cost of the plans including whether the applicant smokes, their weight, age and sex.

Just at the moment, Animal Friends Insurance is funding the six per cent price reduction itself from the fee it receives from LV=. In the future, however, the firm’s aim was to offer lower costs on specialist plans. In ,offering the discount the business is hoping to sign up enough vegetarians to make it economically worthwhile for LV= to underwrite yet another insurance policy that takes the vegetarian’s diet into account.

Indeed there are welcome savings to be made, a forty-year-oldnon-smoker wanting £300,000 worth of life insurance cover might potentially save £393.60 over a 25-year term.

Where serious illness insurance is concerned, AFI believes that insurers should start to treat meat eaters and those that do not eat meat in a way that is similar to the way they view those that don’t smoke and those that do. We hope that that other companies in the insurance industry will follow the initiative.

It is thought that some senior managersin the insurance industry doubt whether there is proof that vegetarians live longer, and how any insurer would know that applicants who had applied stating that they are veggies did not enjoy the occasional Big Mac.

When it comes to smoking, it’s true that there are your Doctor’s records – if you do smoke it’s possible that your Doctor would be aware. But this won’t apply when it comes to eating meat, an an insurance industry spokesperson observed.

But many veggies argue that they are not worried about people falling off the vegetarian wagon and suggested that once a veggie has become a vegetarian, they do not return to meat-eating, that is unlike smokers who tend to drift out and back again into their habit.

WALL-E is probably the sweetest picture ever produced

My husband just lately snapped up Wall-E Blu-ray and I have to articulate it’s groovier than I expected it to be. After many of depressed years of doing what he was built for, WALL-E (short for Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class) finds a new purpose in living (besides hoarding knick-knacks) when he meets a sleek search robot called EVE.

Wall-E is current flick from from Pixar Animation, it uses the voices of stars including the always humorous Fred Willard. It also stars the lovely Sigourney Weaver and every bit as humorous Jeff Garlin and of course Pixar mainstay – John Ratzenberger. Brining In over two hundred and twenty one million has guaranteed Wall-E as another hit for Pixar.

Finding Nemo director Andrew Stanton tops himself with this endearingly loopy Pixar animation that sends up consumerism, musicals, Apple computers, and 2001: A Space Odyssey. The authority and skill with which Stanton’s team have prolonged the parameters of their art form are amazing.

Nonetheless while you can cheer Pixar for trying to heighten the stakes with Wall-E DVD, but the longer the picture proceeds the more one treasures the impact of that brilliant first half-hour. The film feels weirdly, and disappointingly, confused, something that begins out as verse and closes as product.

WALL-E is in all probability the sweetest movie ever produced about mankind destroying the world. Not just is this a great Sci-Fi film, it’s also easily one of the most affectionate! Discounting this as simply another kids movie is not just unfair to the movie, it’s unfair to you.

Foods That Reduce High Blood Pressure

Protein is one of the foods that reduce high blood pressure. A diet with greater protein lowers blood pressure more than a diet high in carbohydrates.

Replacing Some Carbohydrates with Protein and Unsaturated Fat May Enhance Heart Health Benefits: The types of food eaten in an effort to cut down on saturated fat may make a difference in reducing heart disease risk, according to a study of people with either high blood pressure or prehypertension.

The study was supported by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), a part of the National Institutes of Health.

Investigators evaluated three diets that follow the principles of NHLBI’s DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) eating plan with some modifications. One diet emphasized carbohydrates, another diet emphasized protein, and the third emphasized monounsaturated fat.

They reported that while all three diets reduced high blood pressure, improved cholesterol levels, and reduced ten-year risk of heart disease by as much as 16 to 21 percent, two of these modified diets were even more effective in reducing some risk factors and estimated risk for heart disease than the diet richer in carbohydrates.

The Optimal Macronutrient Intake Trial to Prevent Heart Disease (OmniHeart) study will be presented today in Dallas at the American Heart Association annual conference, and also published in the November 15 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

These new OmniHeart study results do not represent new guidelines for healthy eating and the proportions of carbohydrate, protein, and fat for all three diets are all within the ranges recommended by the U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans and other national public health organizations. Earlier in 2005, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services incorporated NHLBI’s DASH eating plan as one option within the U.S. Dietary Guidelines.

All of the studied diets are a vast improvement over the typical American diet which can be high in saturated fat and low in essential nutrients, according to NHLBI Director Elizabeth G. Nabel, M.D. “This study builds on an established body of evidence that shows following a dietary pattern lower in saturated fat, such as the DASH eating plan, can go a long way toward improving overall heart health.

With these new data, we have been able to incorporate even more flexibility into the DASH eating plan by providing additional options for people seeking to improve their heart health through healthier eating,” said Nabel. The study results reinforce the health benefits of following a DASH-type eating plan and suggests that tweaking certain components within that plan—protein and unsaturated fat—may yield benefits for specific risk factors.

Compared with the study diet containing more carbohydrates, the diet with greater protein:

• lowered blood pressure, LDL “bad” cholesterol, and triglycerides, and

• lowered HDL “good” cholesterol. The diet with more unsaturated fat, primarily monounsaturated fat:

• lowered blood pressure and triglycerides,

• raised HDL, and

• did not lower LDL.

By providing all daily meals to 164 men and women for 41 days for each diet, researchers evaluated the three diets to determine whether replacing calories from saturated fat with calories from protein or unsaturated fat was better than replacing those calories with carbohydrate. Saturated fat is known to raise blood cholesterol, and public health officials recommend that it make up less than 10 percent of daily calories for healthy individuals and less than 7 percent of daily calories for individuals with heart disease risk factors.

Participants were age 30 or older and had either high blood pressure or prehypertension at the time of enrollment. “These new findings open the door to further research on the diets’ long-term effects and the ability of people to follow these diets,” said Eva Obarzanek, Ph.D., NHLBI research nutritionist and study co-author.

The OmniHeart study diets differed from each other in several ways:

• The diet emphasizing carbohydrates contained 58 percent of calories from carbohydrates and 15 percent of calories from protein. In addition, it contained 21 percent of calories from unsaturated fat. The other two diets reduced carbohydrate to 48 percent of calories.

• The diet emphasizing protein increased the protein to 25 percent of calories. To increase protein, mostly plant sources, such as beans and nuts, were used, although poultry, egg substitutes, and fat-free or low-fat milk products were also used. Like the carbohydrate diet, it contained 21 percent of calories from unsaturated fat.

• The diet emphasizing unsaturated fat used primarily fats and oils rich in monounsaturated fat, like olive oil, to increase unsaturated fat to 31 percent of calories.Like the carbohydrate diet, it contained 15 percent of calories from protein.

“Our results emphasize the impact that diet can have on blood pressure and cholesterol levels, two of the major heart disease risk factors,” said Lawrence Appel, M.D., M.P.H., of Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions and lead investigator of the OmniHeart study. The OmniHeart study did not address other types of diets such as the Atkins or Mediterranean diet. The OmniHeart study was conducted at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

The first participants started the protocol in 2003, and the last participants ended the study in June 2005. NHLBI has long recommended changes in lifestyle, including following a heart healthy eating plan to reduce risk factors for heart disease. The DASH eating plan was developed through a series of clinical studies that showed that a dietary pattern rich in fruits, vegetables, fat-free or low-fat milk and milk products, and whole grains substantially reduced blood pressure and had other beneficial effects.

The eating plan also includes lean meats, poultry, fish, legumes, and nuts and is low in saturated fats, cholesterol, sodium, and sweets and added sugars. The new DASH Eating Plan menus are included in the book A Healthier You published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This newly released book is based on the 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.

Sources: National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI), Natural Cures and Natural Remedies

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